


Resolve.

by orphan_account



Category: Total Drama
Genre: Animal Death, M/M, bird au basically, falconer au, its not explicit but implied, parrot trainer au, side gwourtney
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-13 18:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13576317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Noah works as an amateur falconer at Hatchet Aviary, which serves as a sanctuary for injured and imprinted birds of prey. The day after his partner bird's death, Owen offers to take him to see a parrot show at Wawanakwa Memorial Zoo, where Owen claims his friend is making her big debut. Hopefully, this will help to clear Noah's mind.





	1. Chrysaetos

**Author's Note:**

> wow hi guys!!!  
> so this is more of an expository chapter, its short but i promise others will be longer xoxo

Noah tightened his eagle's leash around his gauntlet and gave the specialist vet one more pleading look. “And you’re sure none of your machines are up?”  
“We still don’t have any power, and we don’t have the backup generator any more. I took a blood sample and I’ll have it delivered to the nearest office with electricity.”   
“Kitty, you know I trust you,” Noah sighed, fumbling with his bird's hood in his shaking hand. “What if its chlamydophilia psittaci?”  
Kitty sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Chill out with the big words and vicarious hypochondria. Her mutes look alright to us,” she explained, clicking her pen, “and the shortness of breath could be due to the pollen in the air. I promise Eva will be fine. If anything comes up in her blood I will call you immediately.”  
Noah looked at Eva, at her rusty brown eyes. They were as intense as ever, but Noah couldn't help but see the slightest bit of pain behind that intensity. He wished he could drive to the next town, find another specialist, get a second opinion. He wanted someone to just shake his hand and say, “Stop worrying! Your golden eagle will be okay. We know you can’t afford to lose such a bird!” Truly, he couldn’t. But he had no car, not enough money, not enough time.  
Falconry doesn't pay much.  
He reluctantly hooded Eva. “Thanks, Kitty.” Noah lightly ran his hand down the eagle’s back as he stepped out of the door and began to walk home.  
It was just like it always was. He would walk three blocks to his weird back road house. He would entertain the people who gawked and marveled at his bird, correcting the people who called her a hawk while also keeping an eye on the prying hands of children. He would lock his front door and take Eva's hood off, untying her leash after walking her to her customized room. Dinner eaten. Teeth brushed. Hair combed. Noah would just make his way to his bed, like any normal night.   
What Noah wouldn't do is wake to the raucous calls of his golden eagle.

Kitty called the next afternoon. She started to give her usual cheery greeting, but Noah cut her off with a quick “you were wrong” before hanging up hastily. He had been walking for hours with a damn shovel; he wasn't ready to talk to anybody quite yet.  
Noah came to a halt in a small clearing in the woods, making quick work of the rather dry soil. After making a sizeable hole, he dropped his shovel and knelt in front of it, slinging his backpack onto the ground beside him. The falconer pulled out a towel and unwrapped it, revealing the softened form of Eva. He picked her up with a grip lighter than feathers, placing her in the center of the hole and recovering her with the sediment.   
“I found you here,” Noah mumbled, dropping a discarded roof shingle onto the grave, securing the dirt while also making it stick out like a sore thumb.  
He stood up and took a deep breath. “Later, girl. I'm sorry.”  
Noah turned and left. He didn't even take his shovel.

A little bell chimed as the door to the aviary swung open. Chef looked up from the weight charts, a warm smile on his face at recognition of the visitor. “Noah, boy! Haven't seen you in a while!”  
“Hey, Chef Hatchet,” Noah waved half-heartedly as he walked with deliberation towards the back door. He just wanted to help clean some of the enclosures, to take his mind off of everything. He knew Chef would ask about Eva, everyone would, and time and time again Noah would say the same damn thing: he lost his best friend.  
The young falconer plucked the astroturf mats off of a sunned clothesline and slung them over an outstretched arm. As he hobbled back to the main aviary, somebody caught sight of him from inside one of the outdoor mews.  
“Hey man! It's been a minute!” Owen called to Noah, earning the both of them a few clicks of the great horned owls’ beaks. “Ah, just let me…” Owen sidestepped one of their perches to grab a pellet before returning to mute cleaning.   
“Hey, Owen,” Noah replied, flat-toned as always. Owen was overly excitable at times, but he had become one of Noah’s great friends and a diligent aviary employee.   
“So, guess what!” Owen exclaimed, raking some sand into place around a perch. “The zoo in the next town is holding some sort of parrot show this weekend. I’m pretty sure there’s gonna be, like, macaws and other psittaciformes. One of my old friends is a trainer showing off her cockatoo skills there! We should totally go.”  
“That… actually sounds pretty cool,” Noah admitted as he pushed open the doors to the inside. He never really understood psittaciformes, or people who handled them… to him, they were childish birds and childish people who didn't recognize what a bird could be. Predatory birds are just so sleek, so gorgeous and powerful; parrot people don’t even use gloves or jesses, how do they control their bird? Of course, he had seen his fair share of budgies throughout his life, and a few African Grey parrot videos, but maybe it was time to get some sort of 'inside view’ as to the training measures. Plus, leaving town for a while might be nice.  
Noah pondered this as he scrubbed the screech owls’ water bowls with antibacterial dish soap. One of them, Zeke, had left the entire head of a mouse in its bowl. The twins Katie and Sadie had pooped in theirs. It was going to be a long day. 

Poop off. Hose on. Spray. Hang.   
Noah picked up a strong stick and beat the excess water out of the astroturf mats as they hung in the sun to dry. Chef Hatchet came up behind him and clapped one gloved hand onto his shoulder, making the younger falconer jump with surprise. He looked up at Chef to meet his gaze. “Hey, boy,” his voice was softer than the usual powerful bellow Noah was used to. “Kitty told me about what happened.”  
“Oh… she did?” Noah trailed off, shifting his gaze to his feet. He felt his face burn, and he wrung his hands together so as not to let them shake. “I don’t… really know what to do. Her left elbow was permanently damaged, I couldn’t have released her anyway, but…” he stopped.   
“Eva was such an incredible companion,” Chef sighed. “I don’t think you’ll ever find a bird quite like her. But I hope I can help you find one that appeals to you all the same.” Chef removed the falconer’s gauntlet from his hand and held it out to Noah.  
After a moment of hesitation, Noah took the glove and slipped it on. It was freshly washed and oiled, warm from Chef’s hand. Noah looked back up to his superior and his features spread into a small smile.


	2. Macao

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so i decided to have Monday be the upload day bc i am so surprised by all of the positive feedback!!! thank u so much for ur comments and kudos :))) <3

Noah’s doorbell rang throughout his little house, loud and clear. The clock read 9:37 a.m.  
Noah grabbed his house keys, wallet and phone from the counter and headed to the front door. It opened to Owen’s excited face, shaded by an old maple-leaf baseball cap. Today was the day of the parrot show, but Noah was pretty stoked to be going to the zoo altogether. They had some birds of prey, including some wild turkey vultures that hung around and followed people in hopes of snagging some scraps. Owen, as he drove, went on about how excited he was to see the grizzly bear; according to him, it had been named after his granddad, but Noah chalked that off to coincidence.  
Owen had been saying something about his snowy owl Justin when the two pulled into the zoo, parking next to a large topiary display including a bush that had been groomed into the shape of the zoo’s resident tiger. Owen pulled Noah in for a quick selfie with the tiger.  
Owen unfolded a map as they walked through the front gates. “Okay, I know we’re here a few hours early, but… ya know, traffic and stuff.” Noah nodded and gave a little ‘mm-hm’ and Owen continued. “Plus, this is, like, the best zoo in Muskoka. Wawanakwa Memorial Zoo has really stepped up its game! There are tons of things to do.”  
“Hey folks! Welcome to Wawanakwa Memorial!” the pair was approached by a tall woman with a strong Australian accent. Her name tag read Jasmine with a small shark etched into the plastic next to the J. “Do you guys want your picture taken today? I can get you right next to the scarlet macaws!”  
Owen immediately agreed and dragged Noah over to the open macaw enclosure. The birds were tethered to a perch, but there was still no fencing or anything separating the public from what was considered ‘inside’ of the exhibit. This worried Noah for a second until he remembered, oh yeah, not every bird is a carnivore that will attack anything that gets in its territory.  
God. He missed Eva.  
“Alright, you two! Smile now!” Jasmine called out, a professional camera to her eye. Owen and Noah slung their arms over each other’s shoulders and smiled, thankful that the camera did not initiate the flash.  
Jasmine came over and showed the two their picture. Owen thanked her after she told them how to buy it. Noah tipped her ten dollars.

About two hours had passed and Owen was still having the time of his life. The two of them had gotten their faces painted-Owen as a tiger, Noah a small hornbill on his right cheek-and now they were eating churros as they walked towards the auditorium where the show would be held. Apparently, that bear had been named after Owen’s grandfather, as they had an entire plaque dedicated to “the man who saved Ernie”. Noah was showing Owen the vultures he loved so much when some other zookeeper named Shawn or something told him to stop. Jasmine came to Noah’s defense, though. Shawn softened in Jasmine’s presence, and the two visitors thought it had to do with something other than the fact that she was about twice his height.

As Owen was showing Noah some of his favorite pictures he had gotten-he was, admittedly, a really good shot-they stepped into the show area and sat in the second row to the front. “My buddy texted me a while ago,” Owen mentioned. “She said that everything was going really well today, and the show is gonna be awesome!”  
“Sounds great,” Noah commented, his tone a tad flat for the excitement he was actually feeling. The falconer had always had a soft spot for birds, so he didn’t expect that psittaciformes would slip past the radar.  
The lights dimmed in the auditorium when the clock struck 1:00. A spotlight illuminated the middle of the stage and out stepped a pale girl with a streaked teal and black bob-cut, her boots clicking on the wooden floor. “Warning! This show includes low flying birds, so make sure you keep all arms and legs inside of your seat at all times. That being said…” The girl stretched her arms beside her and clicked her tongue, when two birds-what looked like a rose breasted and a palm cockatoo-swooped low over the left and right shoulders of the crowd to land on her forearms. Applause ensued, and the birds bowed-literally bowed-before flying off to the wings of the stage. Noah was already interested. Owen nudged him with his shoulder. “That’s her! That’s my old friend!” he excitedly whispered.  
The opening girl retreated into the shadows to be replaced by a tawny haired boy, scrawny and freckled. He was carrying a microphone stand-and, of course, his cockatoo rode along on top of his messy hair. The boy placed the microphone stand in front of him, adjusted it way lower than it needed to be… and knelt so that his bird could speak into it instead. The crowd laughed. Noah cocked his eyebrow at the sight.  
“Eh-hem,” the cockatoo imitated the exaggerated sound of clearing one’s throat. “Welcome to the Sierra show!” The cockatoo proudly spread her crest, colored like fire, being reddish orange with a pale yellow stripe along the middle.  
Her trainer stood and adjusted the microphone to be more accustomed to his own height, chuckling lightly. “No, Sierra! This isn’t just your show.” He brought his hand up, probably popping a treat into her mouth.  
“Yeah, he’s right, Sierra!” The performer from earlier stepped back onto the stage, resulting in the whole area being illuminated by warm stage lights. “Hey, Cody, why don’t we introduce all of our feathered friends?”  
“That sounds like a great idea, Gwen!” Cody gleefully agreed.  
Noah decided that this all felt a bit too scripted for him.  
Gwen’s two birds returned from earlier, the galah cockatoo coming to her right shoulder and the palm to her left. “This is Zoey!” Gwen announced, and the galah cockatoo spread her wings and bobbed her head. The crowd clapped and whistled. She sure was a pretty bird, with clean rosy-pink plumage and clear mahogany eyes.  
“And this is Mike!” Gwen laughed, as the other bird was already dancing when Zoey had stopped. The palm cockatoo was a deep blue, almost black near the front of his head; his beak was long and obviously very sharp. Both birds then received treats from their trainer and returned to wherever they were stationed before the show started.  
Noah had severely underestimated the sheer number of parrots there were. There was a pair of hyacinth macaws, Alejandro and Heather; a man with a five o’clock shadow came out absolutely covered in lorikeets, proclaiming himself the ‘parrot-master’; a green ring-neck parakeet named Duncan took the same sort of path as Mike and Zoey, flying over the crowd; and a bunch of other birds that Noah and Owen just couldn’t fucking keep track of.  
Another two girls ended up taking the stage, replacing Cody and Gwen, the hyacinth macaws on their shoulders. The taller performer, blonde and stereotypically pretty, began to explain that using food as a reward was one of the best ways to train the birds. Noah thought back on all the times he’d seen a kestrel gut a mouse and then use the same talons to cut somebody’s arm open. He decided no longer to dwell on that.  
The blonde demonstrated by putting one of the macaws on the ground-was it Heather? -and drawing a slice of banana from her fanny pack. She made a little motion with her hand in a circle, and the macaw followed suit, spinning around. The crowd applauded the sapphire-colored bird, which was keening with pride at the acquisition of the fruit.  
The other girl, the one with Alejandro, went on to say that positive reinforcement other than tasty treats is also used-petting, verbal praise, and toys. The shorter brunette had the male macaw step down, and she pulled out a small plastic ball with a bell inside. The bird instantly lit up; the performer placed the ball on the top of her head and he quickly followed. She pet him and praised him, repeatedly saying “up up”. After she put him on the ground again, she said it again loudly, so the crowd could hear. Alejandro immediately flew to her head.  
They left the stage, more acts coming and going; a girl with medium length chestnut hair explained how the birds mimic speech, with Duncan as her partner; the parrot-master reappeared, now with an African Grey, to give a lesson in parrot biology; and, some way or another, Wawanakwa Memorial had gotten their hands on a kakapo, whose weirdness was explained in-depth.  
By the time the show had ended the crowd was clapping and whistling, and all of the trainers had gathered on the stage with the larger parrots for a final bow. Some left via the wings of the stage; others sat near the edge with their partner bird so the audience could get a closer look.  
“Wow! After spending so much time with raptors, you really forget about the other guys, dontcha?” Owen stretched and stood, Noah following suit. The two started weaving their way out of the row of seats and towards the stage edge.  
“Yeah, they’re a lot smarter than I thought,” Noah admitted.  
“Owen!”  
Owen looked for the source of the voice, eyes setting on the waving girl sitting on the stage. It was the pale, blue-haired girl from earlier. Owen practically glowed. “Gwen!” he made his way to where she was sitting, and he awkwardly hugged her from the side so as not to disturb her birds.  
“It’s been so long, dude. I’m so glad you, like, actually came!” Gwen beamed. “I see we’ve both been following our crazy dreams from when we were younger, huh?”  
“Yeah, falconry is just as fun as I thought it would be! I’m super stoked you like training cockatoos as much as you’d hoped.”  
“God, me too. It’s about time I openly enjoyed something, am I right?” she rolled her eyes, and both laughed.  
They seemed to be engaged in some deep, meaningful reunion talk, so Noah decided to stay out of it and instead look for someone else to speak with. Gwen was sitting near two of the other performers: the tawny-haired boy who still had a cockatoo on his head, and the brunette who explained parrots’ speech. The latter seemed connected to Gwen at the side, so Noah shifted his gaze to the major Mitchell and the boy underneath. He was sitting cross-legged, having just finished a conversation with two identical young boys.  
“As a falconer, your ability to hold your bird without a gauntlet is both unnerving and fascinating,” Noah commented in his typical flat tone, making the trainer flash a gap-toothed smile.  
“Well, as a parrot trainer, I find it unnerving and fascinating that your birds have knives for feet.”  
Noah smirked. Good one. “Cody, was it? The name’s Noah. Your bird’s beautiful.”  
“Nice to meet you, dude. And thanks, but don’t give her an even bigger ego than she already has.” Cody pulled a banana slice out of his pack and fed it to his cockatoo. “That ‘Sierra’s show’ bit? We never scripted that. She just kept saying that until we changed it. I’m pretty sure she forgot how to mimic anything else for a good twenty minutes that rehearsal.” Sierra seemed to lift her crest in protest.  
“Trust me, I know more than anyone how bratty birds can be. I had a golden eagle that would go through periods of time where she’d only eat beef heart. You don’t know how much I loathe the smell of freezer-burned rats.”  
“People think we’re kidding when we say parrots are perpetually in their terrible twos. Sierra has, like, this little toy plane, right? She’ll pick it up in her beak and run around with it for hours before she suddenly decides she’s scared of it? I’ll walk into her room and she’ll be completely puffed up, like double her size, just staring at it. Sometimes she just throws it at me.”  
Noah chuckled, moving to Cody’s right to half-sit on the stage. He glanced back at Owen; he, Gwen, and that other girl were all in some feverish discussion about that parrot master. He needed to keep the conversation going somehow. “So, like… why are psittaciformes your favorite?” he offered.  
“I don’t really know?” Cody plucked Sierra off his head (much to her dismay) to place her on the stage. She looked around for a second, disoriented, before turning to face Noah and slowly inching towards him. “They’re kinda like dogs, but birds, you know? Like, they love interacting with people. And they talk back to you. That’s so neat, you know? She mimics the sounds of my keyboard, too.”  
Noah hummed in understanding, reaching his hand out and offering it to Sierra. She drew back, shuffling to Cody’s lap. “Sorry. Major Mitchells tend to form strong bonds to only one person,” Cody chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.  
“It’s alright. At least she didn’t try to attack me or anything.”  
Cody shifted to a more comfortable sitting position, leading Sierra to move to his knee. “So, what led you into falconry? I told you my story.”  
“Well, to be honest, I think that birds of prey are the most beautiful birds there are,” Noah turned to look at Cody. “Sure, they have cryptic plumage, especially true owls, and their beaks and talons are super sharp for killing their prey, but there’s all of this power behind it. You have falcons swooping at 100 miles per hour, harpy eagles with talons long enough to go straight through your arm, great horned owls battling bald eagles for nests… if you look a bird of prey in the eye, you can see their passion and their strength. You can almost see how they’re feeling.”  
Cody let out a breathy ‘wow’ after Noah had finished his spiel. They were still looking at each other, spending a few moments in comfortable silence before Owen slung an arm around Noah’s shoulder. “Hey man! Not every day you make friends on your own.” Noah clicked his tongue, and Owen turned to address Cody. “Hey, I’m Owen! I work with this know-it-all at the raptor aviary in the next town.”  
“Oh, yeah, Gwen told me about you, I think! I’m Cody, and this little girl is Sierra.” He folded his arm to scritch the bird that was stationed on his right shoulder.  
“Wow, she’s super pretty,” Owen commented. “I have a snowy owl myself. With birds of prey you don’t get nearly the same range of colors as you guys do.”  
“Tropical birds sure are flashy, aren’t they? Did you guys see our aviary in the rainforest exhibit? Because we have, like, 12 different species of birds of paradise.”  
“We got cut off before we went to the rainforest portion, didn’t we?” Noah perked up. “That kid with a beanie told me to stop playing with the vultures, and that’s when we realized what time it was.”  
“Oh crap, that’s right. Let’s head over there now, we still have plenty of time before the zoo closes.”  
“Hey, wait a sec,” Cody pulled out his phone. “Where do you guys work? I really wanna check it out.”  
“It’s Hatchet Aviary. It’s maybe a 45-minute drive south, so like…” Noah trailed off and shrugged.  
“I wanna check it out!” Cody repeated, typing the name into his phone. “Plus, you guys got to see a bit of what I do. I think it’s only fair that I do the same.”  
Owen laughed. “Sure, man! We can show you around the park and stuff.”  
“I’ll make you do my work for me,” Noah deadpanned.  
Cody grinned his gap-toothed grin as he put Sierra back onto his head. “At least the former sounds great,” he chuckled. “I’ll try to come as soon as I can.”


	3. Buteo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a new friend arrives!   
> kind of a shorter chapter, I'm sorry I'm not great at this hhhhuhh

The aviary was awfully quiet the next morning.  
When Noah didn’t see Chef at the counter, he padded around the linoleum floor, checking the screech owl cages. They all looked… a little disgruntled, but healthy nonetheless. Their cages hadn’t been cleaned, as per the usual. Suddenly an ear-splitting screech rattled throughout the entire building, followed by the sound of a meat cleaver slicing into a cutting board.  
Next thing he knew, Noah heard Chef scream “God DAMNIT! Just let me CUT YOUR GODDAMN FOOD!” and a barrage of chatters from 10 screech owls. Noah had to check to make sure he didn’t piss himself.   
“Jesus fuck, Hatchet, what’s happening?” Noah whined as he stepped into the kitchen. Chef had set out the chicken and beef heart, and was weighing out a portion that seemed… weirdly sized. Too big for the screechies, but too small for any of the other birds. Behind Chef, on top of the freezer, was a carrier cage.  
“Someone dropped off an imprint to animal services last night, so they brought her here. Apparently, the dumbass didn’t realize how fast ferruginous hawks grow, so they just got rid of her.” Chef motioned with his head over his left shoulder to the aforementioned carrier.  
“A royal hawk? Why on Earth does someone in Ontario, let alone Muskoka, have one of these?” Noah put his hand on his forehead and paced around the kitchen. “It’s nowhere near summer migration time, they must have brought her in from like, Nevada or something, right? How old is she?”  
“First of all, calm down, kid,” Chef lowered his voice. “According to the previous owner, she’s around 4 months old. So her plumage is full, but she’s gonna get a lot bigger.” He motioned to the cage again. Noah stared for a moment, making Chef sigh. “Take her out. We’re gonna feed her on the glove.”  
Noah started to say, “Are you serious?”, but Chef was staring at him so intensely that he just sighed and headed towards the office. He plucked his umber-colored leather gauntlet off the bookshelf, grabbed a light blue leash off the wall-then dropped both items, as the hawk screamed again.  
“Holy shit, she’s loud,” Noah mumbled, bending over to pick up his furniture with shaking hands. He exited the office and hurried past the complaining screechies to the kitchen, where Chef was waiting with a cube of skinned chicken in his hand.  
Noah gloved up and closed the kitchen door, shuffling to face the door of the carrier cage. He couldn’t even see the hawk from where he was standing. He took in a breath and opened the carrier door, shoving his hand in as quickly as he could muster. She protested as loudly as the previous two times as Noah groped around for the jesses, finally grabbing hold of them and slowly drawing his hand back to the front of the cage. He didn’t take her out quite yet; he kept a firm hold on her jesses and only let the door open wide enough for his wrist to pass through. At this angle, while he threaded the leash, Noah could see the bird aggressively biting at the glove.   
He had forgotten that ferruginous hawks had such huge mouths.  
Knotting the leash in place Noah opened the carrier fully and pulled the bird into the open. She was a light morph, with a pale cream-colored body and rufous barring on her face and chest. Her back and the tops of her wings were a chocolate-brown color, not unlike the glove she was sitting on. In agitation, her chest was puffed up a little bit and she was panting with her huge mouth. Whenever it closed, it kind of looked like she was smiling.  
“Well… she’s very pretty,” Noah offered, moving his hand slightly to look into the bird’s eyes. They were colored sort of like an orange marigold, but a bit browner.   
“Glad to know,” Chef mumbled before holding the chicken a few inches from her face. She stared at it almost accusingly before hastily snatching it in her beak. The tip of her beak lightly grazed Chef’s finger, and he cursed. “She sure is young.”  
“I don’t think she’s going to have any problem fitting in,” Noah shrugged. “Remember that one red tail that got hit by a car? Trent got attacked for months before the bird finally warmed up to him.”  
“Well, I’m glad you like her,” Chef looked Noah and the bird up and down before turning back to the cutting board, “because she’s your hawk now.”  
“She’s hm?”  
“You heard me. Get her back in the carrier cage and go fix up Eva’s old mews. We’re making a sign for her, so don’t forget to come up with a name.”  
Noah gaped and shifted his gaze back to the bird on his glove. She looked back at him and screeched.

It took almost 2 hours for Noah to clear all traces of Eva from the old mews. He had to completely replace the old sand, which involved cutting out any roots growing into the enclosure; but cleaning the poop off the perches was nearly impossible, as nobody had touched the enclosure for a week. The only thing that made the whole process any better was that, when Owen arrived, he’d tell any visitors that the cage held ‘the fantastic Noah-bird’.   
The know-it-all falconer was fixing the fresh white sand around his feet when he saw somebody in the corner of his eye. He stopped raking the sand and turned to the front of the mews and saw Owen leaning on the handrail, with his snowy owl on his gauntlet. “Hey, dude, you’ve been working super hard for a long time,” he rubbed the back of his neck. “Do you wanna, like, walk your new bird with me or something? I’m about to take Justin around, he really likes the cold-”  
Noah cut him off. “It… needs to be perfect. I can’t stop working now.”  
“Dude, your fingers are as pale as I’ve ever seen them,” Owen voiced as he scratched between Justin’s eyes. “You don’t even have a jacket on, and it’s November in Muskoka.”   
Noah dropped his rake and looked at his hands. His skin was dry and splitting in some places, complimented by some blisters left from the raking. He stared for a moment, not really looking at anything. Despite this his mind was racing-what had gone wrong? He had perfected his cleaning regimen for the mews. Every day he weighed the portions of food three times to make sure they were right. He researched everything Kitty said, on Google Scholar, no less. Why? Why did she die?  
“Dude.” Noah looked up, and saw that Trent had joined Owen at the handrail. “You need to take a break. You cleaned all of the indoor enclosures, and now you’ve spent two hours stuffed up in Eva’s-”  
“You don’t. Get it. Neither of you,” Noah snapped. “I spent every waking hour of my day making sure that everything that went into Eva’s maintenance was perfect and she just died. I failed. I got a degree for this and I still can’t do it right.”  
“Dude, Noah…” Trent started, but he was stopped.   
“No. This royal hawk deserves to be happy and healthy and Chef just gives her to me? Like I’m not gonna do some shit wrong in a week?”  
“You ever consider that what happened… wasn’t your fault?” Owen suggested. “Like, you can’t control everything, you know. Sure, Eva had that broken wing at first, but she had an autoimmune issue, too.”  
Noah was about to bark at him, but he was suddenly glued into place. “Not… my fault…” He repeated under his breath. Running a hand through his hair, Noah picked the rake back up and stepped out of the back of the mews. Trent and Owen rushed to meet him in the back area, where they found him hastily tossing the rake into the supply shed. Neither of them knew what to say, but their thoughts were interrupted when Noah turned to face them both with a determined look in his eye.  
“Izzy. Her name is going to be Izzy.”


	4. Jamaicensis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter is longer i PROMISE

The first time Noah took Izzy into her new mews, she immediately flew to the top of the enclosure and tried to chew her way through the wire portion of the ceiling.  
“Izzy! You’re going to slice your damn mouth open!” Noah shrieked, looking for some opportunity to grab the hawk’s jesses; however, Izzy threw herself off the wire, beating her wings in Noah’s face to rocket across the mews and land on the sand in the opposite corner. Plucking a covert feather from his mouth, Noah took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “Listen. If you’re just going to attack me whenever I come near you, can you do it somewhere else? Because you’re standing right next to the door.”  
He was met with that same piercing screech. Noah groaned in protest and rubbed his temples.  
“Dude, you realize you’re trying to reason with a four-month-old hawk?”  
Noah jumped in place before noticing that Trent had been standing near the handrail where he had been with Owen earlier, except now he was gloved up with his red tail. “Why don’t you go walk around with Owen? He’s a lot more entertaining to be around.”  
“D.J. doesn’t get along well with Justin,” Trent reasoned. “Besides, watching you get beat up by Izzy is pretty funny.”  
“Go eat one of the rats.”  
Trent chuckled, and turned around to head off. He paused for a moment and looked over his shoulder, adding, “By the way, Hatchet says you need to take all of Izzy’s records to Kitty when you leave.”  
Noah’s blood ran cold. He eyed Trent as he walked inside of the nature center, only for Izzy to fly full-force into the back of his head.

The door to the center closed with a loud thunk! as Noah sulked inside. His flannel was covered in sand and bird shit; there was a stream of blood running down his right cheek from a small cut just below his eye. While the falconer was shuffling to the office with the intent of finding Izzy’s records himself, he was interrupted when Chef called to him from the front counter.  
“Christ, boy! You look a mess.”  
Noah stopped in his tracks, stuck in place for a moment before he could muster up enough energy to face Chef.  
“She sure is… new,” Noah said, passing his gauntlet from hand to hand.  
“Yeah, we haven’t had a new bird come in since Zeke. And he’s just a screech owl, plus you didn’t work with him.”  
“I guess I’m just used to handling a bird that listens to me.”  
There were a few moments of uncomfortable silence before Chef clicked his tongue and ruffled through some papers. “Affable or not, she’s gotta get her vaccinations. Here’s everything we could muster up from that schmuck of a previous owner. She’s just under four months, last reported healthy weight, yadda yadda whatever, everything looks fine. Guess the man just couldn’t keep up with the growth pattern.” Chef produced a packet of about 5 pieces of paper, scribbled on haphazardly with blue ink. Noah walked up to the counter and took the packet as it was offered to him, scanning the first page.  
“So I have to bring this to Kitty right this instant?” Noah asked, quirking an eyebrow. “She’s still the avian vet we’re using?”  
Chef sighed and stood up, stepping around the front desk to stand beside Noah. Two screech owls, Katie and Sadie, were situated on a t-shaped perch on the countertop. The tall man leaned over to gently scratch between their eye, the gentle action juxtaposing his large stature.  
“I know you’re still upset about Eva, Noah,” Chef said, looking down at the relatively short apprentice. “But Kitty is the only certified avian vet in the area that actually knows how to work with raptors. You can’t control nature to its fullest extent, but you can try your damn hardest. That’s why we need to make sure Izzy gets proper care from this age on.”  
Noah was just staring at Chef’s face. For once, he had no witty remark. 

Kitty looked up from her computer when she heard the bells hanging from the doorknob jingle and buzz against each other. Someone walked inside; someone with nothing but a dark expression, a packet of papers, and the clothes on his back. The vet gasped and maneuvered her way out of the receptionists’ area to disappear behind a wall, only to reappear from a door on the same side. Running as best as she could in her heeled boots, she drew the visitor into a tight hug, earning a groan of disapproval.  
“Noah! It’s been, like, what, 4 weeks? What’s up, sourpuss?”  
After trying (and failing) to push Kitty away, Noah reached around and patted her upper back. “I didn’t exactly know how to talk to you after snapping at you like that,” he admitted, though only half-truly.  
“Oh, you big stinker!” Kitty released Noah and put her hands on her hips. “You always say stuff like that, whether you know it or not. Plus, I totally understand. What’s in your hand though?”  
Noah needed a moment to regather his senses-Kitty seemed to be thinking a mile a minute. “Well, you’re still the local bird nerd, so I have some medical papers for you.” He offered the papers to the eccentric vet, who snatched them out of his hand and drew them close to her face to read.  
“Oh! You got a new bird!” Kitty grinned and looked back at Noah, who shrugged sheepishly before she turned back to the papers. “Buteo regalis… fancy! Someone wanted props for their pet. I’ll put her in the system. Do you have a name for her?”  
“Uh, Izzy.”  
“Cute! Okay, come over here so I can make sure that I get everything right.”  
Noah followed Kitty to the computer desk, her typing away with him leaning over the faux-marble countertop. It was basic information, most of which she could just transfer from Eva’s place in the system-is this address the same, is this phone number correct, have you changed your insurance provider, a lot of things she was required to ask (not many things could change in the span of a month).  
“Oh, by the way…” Kitty mused as she finished up Izzy’s account. “Emma told me to tell you she was in town.”  
Noah looked up sharply from his phone and immediately said, “Tell her I don’t want to see her.”  
“Oh, come on, sourpuss! She wants to catch up.”  
“It’s been, like, half a year.”  
“Sometimes people have a lot to catch up on.”  
“Your sister cheated on me.”  
Kitty shifted her gaze from the screen to Noah’s dagger-sharp stare and huffed. “Ya know, fixing conflict is a lot more fun than harboring grudges.”  
“Always the optimist, aren’t you?” Noah laughed under his breath before he straightened his back and stretched. “Well, if everything’s done in there, I better get going.”  
Kitty pouted and hugged Noah from over the desk. “Noooooo…”  
“I have a bird room to sanitize, and your office closed an hour ago.”  
“Well, you better text me or something. Don’t ghost me again.”  
He laughed, turning on his heel to walk back into the brisk November air. The bells jingled behind him.  
Noah looked at the clock on his phone. 9:37 p.m. 

Another show ran seamlessly in the amphitheater of Wawanakwa Memorial. Patrons filed out of the rows of chairs and disappeared into the evening’s cold, bundling up in fuzzy jackets with loved ones. Cody yawned and reached up to stroke Sierra’s flattened crest, as the bird was content nibbling on his eyebrow. She always did that whenever too many people wanted to interact with her post-show.  
Footsteps resonated on the wooden stage behind Cody; the brunette looked over his shoulder to the looming figure of the parrot master. “Another ah-MAZE-ing show tonight, Codemeister,” he chirped, earning squeaks of approval from his near coat of rainbow lories.  
“Thanks, Chris,” Cody said, standing slowly to keep Sierra stable in his messy amber hair. “We got a lot of donations today. Your idea with the new flyover sequence went really well, I think.”  
“Yeah, I am somewhat of a genius,” Chris smirked. “Sierra still looks really good. Keep working on her vocals, alright?”  
“You got it, boss!” Cody flashed finger guns at the parrot master, prompting the same in return before the taller man turned to exit through the wings of the stage. When he was out of sight, Cody sighed and checked the time on his phone. 9:37 p.m.


	5. Kennicottii

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i miiiiight go on a little hiatus bc school sucks my ass

Izzy really didn’t like being on the glove.  
Getting a hold of her jesses was a debacle as it was-even though she spent the night in her carrier, she bolted out of it in the blink of an eye, ending up in the sink among yesterday’s dirty food plates. Noah quickly slammed the door to the kitchen shut (earning an angry shout from Chef) before she could get out of the small room; this was not well received, as she proceeded to hop wherever she could. At only four months, Izzy wasn’t nearly as big as she could be, which made her a prime contender for jamming herself into the small spaces between boxes and bins.  
Once maintaining a firm grasp on the upmost parts of her jesses, Noah made quick work of the falconer’s knot and sidestepped into the main center. Izzy took a few hasty breaths and looked around with pinpointed pupils, letting out not a deafening but more of a pity-inducing screech.  
Noah sighed and started to make his way towards the door to the mews. He felt Chef’s eyes burning holes into the back of his head as he slowly opened the heavy weighted door, squeezed through the opening he had made, shut the door oh so carefully so as not to make too loud of a noise-  
“Oh, sweet, it’s open!”  
Izzy squawked and bated as soon as someone had broken the tense silence of the early morning. Noah let go of the doorknob and extended his left arm with a loud “FUCK!-” as the royal hawk tried her damnedest to get away from her leash-fettered jesses.  
It took a few moments of frantic flight and failed attempts to re-perch the hawk before Izzy hung from Noah’s gauntlet, wings held outstretched and head pointed to her trainer’s disapproving (but mostly exhausted) face. He heard the door open and shut behind him; sighing, Noah closed his eyes and turned to the door, opening them to the unassuming face of the parrot boy. Izzy squawked once more.  
“Hi. Welcome to Hatchet Aviary.” 

“You guys call these mews?”  
“Yeah. What do you call them?”  
“I don’t know. Habitats? Enclosures?”  
Cody hung over the handrail to watch Noah as he dodged Izzy’s erratic jumps from one perch to another. The falconer bent over to shovel some mutes from the already browning sand. “It’s from the French word muer, to change. They used to put the birds into mews when they were molting.”  
“But now you keep them in all the time… what’s French for always?”  
“Toujours,” Noah said, after thinking for a moment. “I don’t think that has the same ring to it.”  
Cody shrugged in defeat while Noah sprayed down Izzy’s perches, prompting her to latch onto the wire roof of the mews. Cody pointed lazily at the spray bottle Noah held. “What is that?”  
“Oh, it’s very high-tech stuff. Chemical-y and enzyme-y. Gets the poop right off.”  
“It’s just that Poop Off spray you can get at PetSmart, isn’t it?”  
“Yeah, but we like to call it Shit-be-gone.”  
Cody chuckled and stood up, placing just his hands on the handrail rather than the entirety of his forearms. Noah glanced up at him. “You know, if you’re getting bored, you can go talk to Owen. He’s in there cleaning his owl’s mews.”  
“Yeah, true, you’re kind of boring,” Cody mused, earning a huff from the falconer below. “But his owl isn’t attacking him. It’s just… sitting there. More boring than your educational speech.”  
“Well, that’s because Justin is used to Owen being in there,” Noah said, his point made by an ear-piercing hawk squawk. “Also, owls are pretty stupid. They’re temperate, and nice to look at, but they’re dumb as a rock. You can’t train them much.”  
“Partial to hawks, are you?”  
Noah straightened. At his full height, he could meet Izzy’s eyes from across the enclosure. She was panting, thoroughly exhausted from the continuous bating, just staring at Noah with the critical eye of a scared and confused predator.  
“Yeah. Maybe I am.”

The most fun part of the day at the aviary was the weird little jobless period between cleaning and feeding where the only duty of any worker was to glove up and walk the birds. Most of the visitors came at this time of the day as well; while it may be warmer to come during the afternoon after the 1 p.m. feeding time, the birds couldn’t be held after they were fed, as the non-owls stored their food in their crop for some time before going about digesting it. Also, it’s not exactly a pleasant experience to be puked on by an owl.  
When Noah was done with Izzy’s mews he decided to entertain Cody by taking the hawk out. The latter followed the falconer into the nature center, loitering by the front counter when he was denied access to the office. Noah grabbed his worn gauntlet from the shelves and picked his preferred leash of blue rope cord; when he stepped back into the main area he found Cody in some riveting conversation with Chef Hatchet.  
“Noah, boy, why didn’t you tell me you knew about McLean?” Chef directed his attention to his apprentice, with Cody following suit.  
“McLean? Never heard of him.”  
Chef motioned for Noah to join their banter. Noah moved to stand next to Cody and placed his gauntlet and leash on the counter, standing next to the two screechies on display. Cody grinned at him before turning to Chef again. “Yeah, Noah never got the chance to talk to Chris. He doesn’t normally stay out after the shows because he thinks that dirty people will try to touch his lorikeets,” he said, wiggling his fingers for effect, as though the patrons of the zoo were creepy crawlies that would infect the precious psittaciformes.  
“That sounds exactly like some shit McLean would pull,” Chef mused, shaking his head. “We were in the same undergraduate wildlife bio class. If I had one word to describe him, it would be arrogant. For sure. He had a big head with bigger dreams.”  
“Were you guys friends? I mean, like, you remember him, and it’s been a while. Have you kept in contact or something?”  
“That Chris was a no-good self-centered control freak that always boasted about whatever scores he had, academic or not. But… he took some damn good notes. Saved my ass junior year. Ten years after graduation when I saw that he had established that parrot show, I was so proud of him. I attended the first show, you know.”  
“Really?” Cody beamed, bouncing on his toes. “How was it? Chris always talks about his ‘glory days’.”  
“It was great. Everything he ever dreamed it would be. Free flying birds, obedience training, all the pizzazz you probably do nowadays. But he never did talk to me after the show. He always did care more about those birds than anything else.”  
“Jeez, what a dickwad,” Noah said. His chin rested in his hand, the other absentmindedly scratching Sadie on the display perch.  
“Well, he helped me learn something. You gotta really care about something if you’re gonna be good at it, and not get distracted by anything unimportant. I stepped up my game after that night, and here I am. You, Noah. You seem to have learned that lesson too. I really see myself in you, boy.”  
“You guys have such a great connection,” Cody offered. “Chris complements how I do in shows sometimes, but, like, in practice and stuff, he can be really rude. Like, that woman on Dance Moms, you know? The parrots probably only do well because Chris scares them to death.”  
Noah snorted and shifted his attention to the other screechie. “Chef is probably the only person in the world who has the same mindset that I have.”  
“You’re the sassiest apprentice in the whole damn world.”  
“Maybe so.”  
Cody snickered from his place at the counter.

Izzy still didn’t like being on the glove.  
Cody watched intently from the handrail as though the ordeal was an action movie, and Noah was some sort of underdog protagonist and Izzy was the incredibly annoying villain. She bated onto every platform she could reach, smacking her trainer in the face on occasion. Noah grew tired.  
“Okay, how has your stamina increased so much in the span of twenty-four hours?!” the falconer shouted, glaring at the juvenile hawk on the perch in front of him. Her large mouth still gave her the guise of a cheesy smile when she closed her mouth. “Your dumb little smile haunts me, you feathered demon.”  
Cody snorted, high pitched and childlike. The noise startled Izzy, and she whipped her head around fast to face the front of the mews. Noah took the opportunity to grab the hawk’s jesses and work the leash through their loops, working fast while she was distracted. When Izzy finally realized what was going on, she stared at her anklets for a moment before stepping onto the glove and immediately directing her attention back to Cody. Noah’s breath caught in his throat, and he paused for a moment before completing the knot and stepping out of the back.  
“Hey! That didn’t take so long,” Cody said when Noah reappeared on the deck. “I think your bird likes me.”  
Noah scoffed. “If Izzy likes you more than she likes me at this point, I’m quitting.”  
Cody chuckled and bent his knees a bit to look Izzy in the eye. She stared at him but didn’t bate or screech; instead they held eye contact for a few moments while Cody breathed through an open-mouthed smile and the hawk held her own closed-mouth grin. Noah looked down at the interaction with some odd sense of fondness, with whatever warmth someone can get from the curious bronze gaze of a carnivore and the childish wonder of a gap-toothed smile. It was an unusual sight.  
Cody stood up. “So, what do you do now?”  
“Well, all the cleaning is done, Chef never wants help with food prep, and I somehow got Izzy on the glove,” Noah listed off the facts on his fingers. “Now we just… take the birds for walks around the trail.”  
“Oh, sweet! I barely get to do stuff like this. You know, working in the zoo and stuff,” Cody scratched the back of his head. “I… the parrot trainers walk around the park sometimes, but there’s no real untouched stuff.”  
Noah hummed. “Well, there’s a few trails we can take, and the only real human influence on the area is the shelters and the trash on the ground.”  
“Hey, I’m down for anything as long as I don’t have to defuse a bomb.”

The late-fall cold bit into Noah’s face as he and Cody walked through the woods. They made whatever small talk they could, like when they had first met; of course, they didn’t really know anything about each other, other than their shared occupation of caring for bratty birds. Surprisingly, the present bratty bird didn’t do much to make their walk a living hell; every now and then she would call, mostly in warning to the songbirds in the area, but she never bated. Izzy simply shuffled her feet on the glove, a tap-dance over her jesses whenever she got uncomfortable, her talons loosely tearing the outer layer of leather.  
One thing Izzy did that completely flabbergasted Noah was keep her gaze pointed at the parrot boy for about ninety percent of the walk. When the boys made too sharp a movement, or if something large rustled in the forest, she would be jolted out of her daze; but the hawk seemed intent on keeping her golden eyes pointed at the fair-skinned visitor to the aviary. Even as he eccentrically waved goodbye, promising to come back as he stepped through the heavy front doors, she remained fixed on him, as though he was an enemy being held at too close of an arm’s length.

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first fic and of course its garbage fandom garbage ship  
> my tumblr is toco-noco, where you can see promo art and updates!!!!   
> thank u for reading :)


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